A Muslim charity joins the campaign against mass incarceration

Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune

Su'ad Abdul Khabeer breaks the Ramadan fast with others at the Inner-City Muslim Action Network on June 13, 2018. Khabeer, an organizer with Believers Bail Out, has helped the organization raise more than $100,000 to free Muslim inmates awaiting trial at Cook County Jail.

Su'ad Abdul Khabeer breaks the Ramadan fast with others at the Inner-City Muslim Action Network on June 13, 2018. Khabeer, an organizer with Believers Bail Out, has helped the organization raise more than $100,000 to free Muslim inmates awaiting trial at Cook County Jail. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

Manya Brachear Pashman

Held in Cook County Jail for the last two months because he could not afford to meet the bail, the Muslim father of four observed most of the holy month of Ramadan behind bars.

Then last week, his faith community set him free. On Friday, he will mark the end of the monthlong fast and celebrate Eid al-Fitr reunited with his family.

As part of a campaign called Believers Bail Out, more than 1,900 donors have raised more than $100,000 to free Muslims awaiting trial at Cook County Jail. The pilot program is in its infancy, with only one inmate freed, but organizers say it is just a start, with plans to expand the campaign to other states, including Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The effort has served to galvanize the Muslim community around a broader push in the United States to curb a prison population that remains the highest in the world, despite declines in recent years. It has been a rare source of agreement for conservative and liberal advocates and has gained momentum in other religious circles as well.

“Bail out is the tactic, it’s not the endgame,” said Su’ad Abdul Khabeer, 39, a founder of the campaign. “The endgame is to get rid of money bonds and mass incarceration. This is one way to immediately help people, but to get the broader Muslim community more deeply engaged with the issues around mass incarceration.”

During Ramadan, expected to end as early as Friday after a sighting of the new moon, Muslims are expected to abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours as a sign of patience and piety. They also are encouraged to step back from their daily routines and focus on "zakat,” or charity. Organizers spent the last 29 days hosting teach-ins and iftars to raise awareness about the struggle for detainees who can’t afford the money bonds required to go back to their jobs or families before their trials. According to the Maryland-based Pretrial Justice Institute, more than 60 percent of people in U.S. jails have not yet been to trial. About 90 percent of them remain there because they can’t afford their bail.

“Islam as a tradition has this idea of justice embedded in it,” Khabeer said. “Quran talks about standing up for justice even against yourselves. We have a responsibility to respond to that. Thinking of zakat in this way, particularly in our context here in the United States, really is compelling for folks.”

According to the Maryland-based Pretrial Justice Institute, more than 60 percent of people in U.S. jails have not yet been to trial. About 90 percent of them remain there because they can’t afford their bail.

The Believers Bail Out highlights not only a political and social movement in this country, but a tenet of Islam, dating back to the time of Prophet Muhammad. The Quran equates the act of freeing human beings from bondage with righteousness, said Nura Maznavi, another co-founder of the campaign who directs the pro bono services initiative at the University of Chicago Law School.

“We see money bond and the inability to be released from pretrial detention as a form of modern day bondage,” she said. “It’s not based on anything but their inability to post a bond.”

The inability to pay bond — particularly for defendants charged with nonviolent crimes — has been the subject of reform in jurisdictions around the country, including Chicago. Jurisdictions including California, Colorado, Kentucky, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., have sharply curtailed the use of bail or have taken steps in that direction.

Maznavi said organizers launched the pilot program in Chicago because of the infrastructure already in place to carry out its goals. Since its establishment in 2015, the Chicago Community Bond Fund has posted bond for more than 140 people charged with crimes and held in Cook County Jail — the largest single site pretrial detention center in the nation. Co-founder Sharlyn Grace said the data show an inability to pay bond leads to higher rates of conviction, longer sentences, loss of housing and jobs, separation of families and lost custody of children. The community bond fund also advocates for the abolition of money bond.

Grace said limited funding has prompted the bond fund to come up with eligibility criteria and priorities, including whether a detainee has a health issue, has children or is part of a marginalized community that could put them at greater risk behind bars. Without religious or demographic information, the bond fund has not prioritized or focused on Muslim inmates.

“This is something that the Believers Bail Out really put on our radar in a specific and meaningful way,” Grace said.

Indeed, experts say Muslim inmates are at just as much risk of discrimination behind bars as they are in society. Federal law entitles all inmates to accommodations that enable them to fulfill their religious obligations. During Ramadan, that includes eating only between sundown and sunrise, showering once a day and praying five times a day.

Ed Vogel, a volunteer with the bond fund who personally has posted bond on behalf of CCBF for 15 detainees in Cook County, said learning about the challenges facing Muslim inmates has been an edifying experience.

"It allowed me to better understand the principles of justice within Islam and why prison abolition is as central to Islam as it is to Christianity and others like the Baha'i tradition,” said Vogel, who also posted bond for the Believers Bail Out’s first beneficiary last Friday. "The principle is there, and it has a long history that needs to be elevated.”

Maznavi said she has worked on issues of bail reform for the last 15 years but still never considered paying money bond as an option for giving zakat.

“These are dots that needed to be connected for me, and I’ve been doing this work for a long time,” she said. “That we could spread that message and educate folks, that’s resonated.”

On Friday, Vogel delivered a package of dates, the customary food used to break the Ramadan fast, and a bottle of water from Mecca, before posting the $2,500 needed to reunite the detainee with his family. Organizers would not release the recipient’s name and declined to specify the charges against him, citing his privacy and the legal principle of innocence until proven guilty.

“That was something we really wanted to emphasize,” Maznavi said. “In this country, there’s a presumption of innocence before guilt. Someone charged with a crime is not guilty of that crime. That’s the underlying problem of money bond. It’s not related to somebody’s guilt. It’s solely dependent on their ability to pay. If a judge has set a bail amount, that’s the end of the inquiry.”

Maznavi said the campaign seems to have landed at a time when Muslims of different races and ethnicities are addressing similar or related issues that affect them disproportionately. African-Americans, many of them Muslim, have been involved in conversations about mass incarceration and pretrial detention for people who have not been convicted. Meanwhile, immigrant communities, many of them also Muslim, have been concerned about surveillance and entrapment tactics by law enforcement as well as the conditions inside facilities for immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally and await deportation.

“It speaks to the greater movement within the American public and awareness about the injustice of the criminal justice system the disproportionate impact on minorities and people of color,” Maznavi said. “We’re seeing nationally an awareness we haven’t seen before.”

The success of the campaign has reminded Maznavi that Ramadan underscores the power of possibility. The prospect of abstaining from food and water for 18 hours a day always seems inconceivable, she said. But then she does it.

“It’s this idea that we’re able to do these things that we don’t think is possible,” she said. Working in the field of bail reform can become discouraging, she said.

“I’ve become cynical about the power of change and the power of grassroots activism, and this is instilling hope,” she said. “That’s what Ramadan is all about.”